


Sweet Soother

by chibixkadaj



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Comfort, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 10:58:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19130650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibixkadaj/pseuds/chibixkadaj
Summary: Every midnight, when Taeyong loses sight of himself, Yuta comes to comfort him.





	Sweet Soother

**** It happens at midnight and Taeyong can’t sleep.

Actually it happens every midnight like clockwork. If he’s sleeping he’ll wake. If he’s awake he’ll be unable to sleep. When time resets it’s like he, himself, does a 180 with the day. Some might find it refreshing to go on from midnight without the burdens from before but Taeyong is perpetually frustrated. 

What if he wants to remember?

There are tastes and touches and thoughts that he wants to keep, and he knows as he’s making those memories that they’ll slip through his fingers in only a moments’ time no matter how hard he tries to burn them into his heart. 

It’s not amnesia, exactly. It’s not that he forgets everything that’s happened to him. But the imprint of the events, the way they might linger in a regular person’s mind and file away to be recalled later with latent sensations and evocative feelings, is foreign to him. It always has been. It always will be.

Taeyong has some constants, though-- he is always afraid of thunderstorms. He always remembers being afraid of them, too. He’ll forever have the feeling of lightning coursing under his skin; that one in three thousand chance that took him out as a teenager and never left him the same. 

He also has Yuta; the floppy haired Japanese boy who moved into his apartment complex to start university the year that Taeyong intended to drop out, whom he’d first only see in passing or at opposite ends of a classroom.

Now, Yuta comes to visit him every midnight. Their friends tease him saying, “Why don’t you just elect to become roommates?” But Yuta likes rooming with Taeil and Taeyong enjoys the privacy of his studio space. “Besides,” Yuta always adds, “Isn’t it cute to hear me shuffle down the hallway every night?”

“It’s cute until you trip over something and shake us all awake,” Sicheng groans with a roll of his eyes and a scrunch of his nose. 

“That only happened  _ twice! _ ” Yuta groans. “Besides, you should love when I wake you up and signal that your boyfriend’s room is all clear, don’tcha think?” Beneath the table they’re all sitting around Yuta takes Taeyong hand, but above it he turns and shoots him a sweet smile that gives away all the love and adoration they’ve come to feel for each other. It always makes Taeyong wonder why he hides the hand holding in the first place. They all already know anyway.

But Yuta is a mystery like that. He’s a stereotypical football jock with a heart of gold and a penchant for watching and reciting lines of his favorite romance anime. He carries himself with the most casual demeanor but then says the sweetest things as if they were offhand comments. He, like with this table, hides their skinship but spreads love across his face for everyone to read and would be quick to lean in with a kiss had Taeyong not shifted last second. And, lastly, he never ceases to leave Taeyong in awe of just  _ why _ and  _ how _ he ended up picking a tsundere like  _ him _ of all people as his one and only.

Don’t be fooled by Taeyong demeanor or condition, though. He loves Yuta to the moon and back and throughout all the stars. The world--or rather  _ their _ world, a close circle of friends who have only known each other since university’s start but might as well be soulmates--knows it. 

Yuta knows it too. 

It’s the reason why he’ll give his nights to make sure Taeyong feels safe and secure during that time with said moon and star; when his nights leave him in a turmoil they must tackle together. 

Tonight there’s thunder clapping loudly around their building and lightning splits the sky in two. The pitter patter of rain is only so soothing and Taeyong has subconsciously buried himself beneath his blankets. His arms wrap tighter than he means to around a plushie of a rabbit and though the minute hand of the clock is steadily making its way to midnight as soon as it hits Taeyong still remains with this all consuming fear. 

“Fuck,” he hisses under his breath when tears finally start rolling down his cheeks. The whole day is nothing but writing on paper-- a bulleted list of things he accomplished with people he loves, without all the emotions attached. Sicheng had been so happy to see them at his recital...why couldn’t he have at least held onto that warmth?

Frantic knocking on his apartment door just barely cuts over the sounds of the storm and it isn’t until Taeyong hears calls of his own name that he registers what’s happening. “A-ah, coming!” He scrambles out of bed, pulling his blankets around him like a jacket with a hood and by a miracle manages not to trip on his way to the door. He yanks it open. 

Yuta’s there with soft eyes and a bit of sweat on his brow. His chest rises and falls in little puffs of breath because he’s run three flights of stairs to get here. Before Taeyong can blink he’s stepping inside and wrapping Taeyong (blankets and plushie and all) tightly in his arms. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I had my alarm set for midnight but I didn’t wake up to the storm. I would’ve been here earlier otherwise, I swear,” he squeezes Taeyong tighter and his hands start rubbing small, soothing circles over his shoulder blades that are just as much for himself as they are for Taeyong. He needs to calm down too. The black haired male knows and doesn’t fault Yuta for this. He’s not upset, he just needs to convey that explicitly. And that’s where he doesn’t really know how. 

Taeyong isn’t the best with his words to begin with, but in the wake of the midnight hour he struggles more as he balances putting himself back together for the new day.

Somehow, though, he manages to wrap the blanket loosely around them both and guides (or maybe is guided by, it’s a bit of a blur) Yuta to the bed. While dark eyes seek out a pretty pair to match, shaky hands start to work their way through Yuta’s blond hair. Yuta holds his lover’s gaze and smiles, though there’s a little bit of uncertainty in it just because he’s still so wrought with the guilt of not paying attention to the storm. Letting Taeyong draw the details of Yuta’s person back into his heart, he only moves when Taeyong’s hands finally settle on his chest and he can gather them up into his own. “Hey,” he breaths out. “Are you coming back to me now?”

Taeyong nods slowly.

“Good. And--” He is cut off by a loud roar of thunder that makes them both wince. Taeyong whimpers and presses closer to Yuta. “And I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.”

Taeyong shakes his head in response. “You come here every night even though your bedtime is 10PM. I could never be mad at you for sleeping.” Not like he’d be mad at all with his condition, but even without it he likes to think of himself as understanding. 

“You’re shaking.”

Taeyong hears the frown in his lover’s voice so he tries to bury himself further and stop to no avail.

“That’s okay, you can shake all you need to. I’m here.” 

Yuta really is so good to Taeyong and he knows this. Yuta is, arguably, the best to Taeyong. He just sits patiently while Taeyong maps out their memories between light touches and soft words. He smooths back Taeyong’s dark hair and whispers to him, anything from anecdotes to stories and all that comes in between. 

“Remember when we first met?” Yuta asks when the storm doesn’t seem like it wants to let up. “Like met, met for real. Not me stealing glances at you when I was supposed to be taking class notes.”

At some point in their silence Yuta had shifted them both until his back was against the wall and Taeyong was settling against his chest. At no point had his hand stopped moving over his blanketed boy. 

Taeyong, now only wincing at particularly bright flashes of lightning, glances up and nods. 

“But do you  _ remember _ .” Yuta chuckles.

Taeyong frowns. “What do you think?”

A hand trails down Taeyong’s cheek and over his jaw. “In the laundry room in the basement…”

Taeyong had liked to take his time doing laundry. There was a weird sort of peace he found sitting alone in one of four blue plastic chairs, surrounded by rumbling machines and the scent of detergent. He usually brought a book along with his phone, taking his time to read something new or tackle a few levels of a game he hardly touched otherwise. Because laundry was in the building, most others simply dropped their clothes and ran and he never expected company.

Three weeks into the new student’s stay Taeyong had found his blond head sitting in his favorite chair on laundry day. 

“Oh,” he said before he realized it, prompting the other to look up.

“Oh, hi,” the stranger--well, okay, Taeyong knew his name was Nakamoto Yuta but in terms of actually meeting one another he was still technically a stranger--replied. “Am I...in your way?” 

“No,” Taeyong was still staring at him though, unsure of how to maneuver with another person around. “You’re fine, I’ll just…” He let that sentence fall apart in the space between them and instead shuffled over to his favorite washer, pleased to see it wasn’t taken also. Then he pressed himself against the wall, with only a chair’s worth of space between himself and the other. 

Taeyong couldn’t focus on his book though and after a moment Yuta seemed to notice that, too, because he turned to Taeyong, smiled, and said “I can go it you need me to.”

“What?”

“Yeah. You look uncomfortable and I know you come down here a lot so I don’t want to disrupt your habits or anything,” he shifted, started putting things into his bag and checked the washer to set a timer, but Taeyong stopped him before he got too far.

“No. No… It’s okay. I mean I am kind of uncomfortable but that’s not your problem. So, uh...stay. I’ll be less weird.”

Yuta smiled as he sat down again. “It’s not weird.”

Taeyong laughed. “I’m a little weird.” 

“...I guess you were a little weird,” Yuta teases, pinching Taeyong’s cheeks just enough to make him pout.

“I was  _ not _ .”

“Maybe not. You were cute though, waiting for me in the laundromat every day a month later. And...I think I was cute, too, when I propped you up on top of the washer for our first kiss.”

Taeyong feels his cheeks flush red which Yuta clocks in an instant and starts teasing him for. He presses on because this is his favorite state to see Taeyong in (and while he knows that his feelings aren’t embarrassment compounded upon itself from all the days they’ve shared he also recognizes that they both enjoy it as a sense of sort of normalcy). “And what about when we started getting a little to, mmm, handsy? Is that the right word for it? Before we remembered there were cameras.”

“Oh my God,  _ stop! _ ” Taeyong giggles and begs. He pushes Yuta feably before attempting to bury his face into the other’s side. It only gets him so far.

Yuta has him propped back up so he can gaze sweetly and smile at him. “Never. I’ll never stop.” He leans in to kiss him. Taeyong returns that kiss in full and they kiss until he starts...crying. 

_ Oh? _ This was a little early, wasn’t it?

Yuta doesn’t say anything, he just gathers Taeyong’s tears with his thumb and swipes them away. 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Taeyong whimpers but then nods. “I wish… I wish it wasn’t like this. I wish  _ I _ wasn’t like this.”

It’s the same thing almost every night but Yuta doesn’t cut him off or quiet him. He lets Taeyong’s tirade go as long as it needs to until he’s looking imploringly at his lover for response. Then, gently, with his hands running through Taeyong’s dark hair he says, “I know. But I think you handle it well. And you know I’m here to help you handle it all, too.”

Taeyong sighs so hard he melts into Yuta’s side. “I know…”

“And...I think if you wanted to tell our other friends they’d understand too. But I know how hard it was for you to tell me so I’m not pressuring you. I just want you to know I encourage it if you think it’d help.”

Taeyong shifts because he knows Yuta is right, he just lacks the self-confidence or comfort to admit that.

“Remember what I said then? You losing the feelings of these feelings doesn’t mean those moments no longer matter. And if anything....it gives us the chance to relive those times again in full. Let you feel it all over again, and again, and again, however often you want.”

Of course Taeyong remembers: It was the second night they decided to share together, wrapped up in each other’s arms and clothes until it all came off and left them only the security of Taeyong’s blankets. They drank a little too much then but their hands only wandered to places they already knew. Their lips met like fireworks shot off into starlight. And Taeyong giggled until the clock struck twelve. The way he froze on the spot had sent Yuta into a brief panic. He didn’t understand and Taeyong hadn’t wanted to share his oddities so soon. Yuta didn’t deserve that, he thought. Yuta didn’t deserve him.

But that flash of fear didn’t stop the Japanese man from picking Taeyong up like a ragdoll off the floor and piecing him back together until he was ready to share his deepest and darkest secret. And when it was all said and done? Yuta just smiled and said, “We’ll get through it.” 

This is the optimism that kept Taeyong from dropping out of school. This is the optimism that compelled Taeyong to really dive into personal projects for all sorts of things he cared about. This is the optimism that was so uniquely Yuta’s, it made Taeyong grateful for each and every day he could bask in it--no, more than bask,  _ grow. _

“And you’ve helped me grow a lot too, you know,” Yuta, ever the mind reader, adds. “I never would’ve adapted with my grade school level Korean as quickly if it wasn’t for you helping me every day. So don’t feel like it’s one sided because I’ll fight you.” 

“You're stupidly good at languages, I did nothing.”

“Yah!”

Taeyong cringes as Yuta pinches his cheek again and pouts, as always, through the string of laughter washing over him after. 

“There it is,” Yuta practically coos, hardly a moment later.

“There what it?”

“Your smile.” 

Taeyong blinks. A hand raises to his lips, touching the corners because he hadn’t realized. 

Yuta really had such a way with him.

“Hey, Yuta?” Taeyong starts to say as the tapping of the rain subsides. He presses himself back into Yuta’s side. 

“Hey, Taeyong?”

“I love you.”

Yuta’s lips tug at the corners and his forefinger and thumb come to cup Taeyong’s chin. He tilts his head until their lips can meet. It’s a slow kiss, taking its time and intent with a want to leave its mark. “I love you too. And don’t you forget it.”

Taeyong smiles back. 

“I’ll never.” 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for requesting this story, anon! 
> 
> Comments and kudos are loved and appreciated.
> 
> Come chat with me on Twitter (https://twitter.com/ChibiKadaj) or curiouscat (https://curiouscat.me/ChibixKadaj) ^^


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